


Silence

by CatLovePower



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Curse Breaking, Cursed Jaskier | Dandelion, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Enemies to Friends, First Kiss, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, POV Alternating, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:42:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28714476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatLovePower/pseuds/CatLovePower
Summary: After the mountain break-up, Geralt and Jaskier drifted apart. When their paths cross again months later, the bard is apparently still holding a grudge and refuses to talk to him. But Geralt (very) slowly realizes that something more sinister might be at play.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 18
Kudos: 358





	Silence

Witchers usually didn’t get tired – not unless that had been running on empty for days – and yet Geralt pushed the door to the local tavern, and felt a terrible weariness wash over him. The inn was crowded, hot and noisy. Men were playing cards in the back, shouting and laughing, and a bard was playing an annoying song about love on an out-of-tune lute. And Geralt hated the fact that he knew the instrument was out of tune. 

Geralt half regretted leaving Roach in the stables and not deciding to sleep outside in the woods. But he needed food and information, and he had been told he would find both there. 

Several patrons gave him the stink eye, but for once he wasn’t covered in guts, so there was no reason for him to be denied service. A few orens got him a tankard of ale, sour and way too warm, and a key to a room upstairs. The innkeeper didn’t seem to like his kind very much, and he had little information to offer about the monsters sightings down south, but all pointed to a very basic drowners nest. Easy coin at least. 

He was trying to find a dark corner to drink alone when his eyes caught a flash of something colorful, so out of place in the smoke-filled tavern. 

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, as he approached the other man’s table.

The bard whipped his head around and several conflicting emotions passed on his young face. Yennefer was wrong, Geralt thought, there were no crows feet at the corner of his eyes. Jaskier looked surprised and happy to see him – maybe even hopeful, even if that made little sense – but a second later, his eyes dulled and his smile vanished. Geralt frowned, but he supposed he deserved it. Or maybe he was just bad at reading human emotions.

They hadn’t seen each other since that fateful day on the mountain, after that damn dragon hunt, and Geralt was glad to find him well – so much had happened to the Continent in the few months they were apart – even if Jaskier was giving him the cold shoulder, quite literally. 

Geralt sat on the bench opposite with a gruff, “Do you mind…?” He only got a dispassionate shrug, and decided it was enough permission.

Jaskier carried on eating, as if Geralt wasn’t even there; he didn’t argue about the witcher’s presence or demand excuses. Geralt settled down in an uncomfortable silence, nursing his beer. It was distasteful. And so was the song the other bard was singing from the other side of the room. The absence of comment from Jaskier was a bit strange, but Geralt remembered his own last words to the bard pretty clearly, and well, he only had himself to blame for getting the silent treatment.

“Too bad it’s not you singing,” Geralt tried anyway, awkwardly, his voice too rough.

Jaskier raised an eyebrow and pointed to the stuffed pie with his fork. Great, so he was still mad about that comment as well. 

And so, for once, it was Geralt who talked. Bits and pieces, with grunts and pauses; about the fall of Cintra, about what transpired at Sodden, about Ciri. He didn’t use names, because even Temeria wasn’t a safe place anymore, but Jaskier still nodded, frowned and smiled faintly along his disjointed tales. And yet he didn’t comment, didn’t ask a single question. There was no real animosity in his blue eyes, just a lingering, contained sadness. And it was only fair, Geralt thought. 

“I’m heading south tomorrow morning,” Geralt finally said, before they parted for the night. He didn’t feel like this one way conversation was enough. “I’d like for you to join me, if you’d like,” he added, his voice barely a whisper, but the annoying bard had stopped singing a while ago, and the patrons had quieted down.

Jaskier stared, blinked, and cocked his head to the side, as if considering the idea, while Geralt was starting to regret even suggesting it. What if he refused? That would hurt for sure.

He was about to add something else, when a sturdy man who reeked of sweat and alcohol approached the table and clamped Jaskier’s shoulder, making him jump in his seat. And yet he remained utterly silent, eyes pleading Geralt… not to intervene? Or was it the other way around? He was definitively rusty at the whole human interaction thing.

“Leave the bard alone,” Geralt growled, and something he couldn’t place sparkled in Jaskier’s blue eyes as he looked at him.

The man laughed and didn’t take his hand away. He was squeezing a little too hard, if Jaskier’s grimace was anything to go by, and said, “This one is as much a bard as me. He’s a cheat, a scumbag, and he owes me money.” 

All of that was probably true, so Geralt didn’t argue, but he watched with narrowing eyes as Jaskier’s whole body tensed, his face now rigid; and yet he still didn’t retort anything scathing and deeply insulting.

Geralt saw a flash of something shiny in the bard’s hand, and by the time he realized it was a short dagger, hidden in his doublet sleeve, Jaskier had already struck.

A pained yelp. The smell of blood. He must have only nicked the other man, because the coppery smell was soon replaced by the overpowering one of fear – from the aggressor, from the other patrons, from Jaskier himself. He looked torn, and ready to strike again. Geralt grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, expecting some protests but getting none.

He frogmarched the flailing bard away from starting a fight, keeping a hand free in case he had to grab his sword. But the message was well received, and no one dared prevent the possibly murderous witcher and the feral bard under his protection from leaving the establishment. 

*

Jaskier didn’t protest, didn’t fight the witcher’s decision to drag him to the stables to retrieve Roach, and then to the woods, despite the late hour. He had managed to grab his bag before they got out, but his lute was nowhere to be seen – and yet he trudged behind, shoulders slumped, head down. 

Geralt supposed he had a stupidly convoluted story about debts and card games. He didn’t press though, he didn’t want to meddle more than he already did. After all, it had already cost him a night in a somewhat clean room upstairs.

Geralt didn’t get a single, ‘Thank you.’ Not even later, as they gathered firewood and settled in the deafening silence of the woods at night. But the witcher found that he was too weary to argue about anything that just happened. For once the matter had been resolved nearly quietly, and no angry mob had tried to hunt them down for now, so that was a nice change.

“Let’s talk about it tomorrow?” he offered, and in the dark he could see Jaskier’s face, closed off, his jaw set, not reacting. 

That degree of stubbornness was unheard of, he thought. But then again, Jaskier had never really been moderate in anything he did.

Geralt made sure he was turned the other way on their single bedroll before he smiled into the night. Sleeping back to back and brooding silently felt like the good all days all of a sudden, and nostalgia washed over him as he closed his eyes.

*

Jaskier lay awake for a while, wondering how dumb the witcher really was. Six months was a long time to be still mad at someone, even for someone as petty as him. Of course, he had been angry and dejected, he had groveled and written bitter songs, for a long time.

And then he had heard about the fall of Cintra, he had to flee north, remembering the mousy haired child who used to sneak out to watch him perform during banquets at the court. He was glad to have learned the girl had survived – she was probably training with witchers as they spoke, poor thing. 

Geralt certainly had a lot on his mind, but that still didn’t explain why he never questioned Jaskier’s silence. He was miffed by that lack of concern – it was like the witcher finally got what he wanted, a silent companion who could only nod and follow, not argue and whine and get him into trouble. 

But instead Jaskier chose to believe that the witcher was just very stupid, and wouldn’t recognize a magical ailment if it hit him in the face. He would not grovel and try to ask for help, Jaskier thought, fighting the smirk that threatened to blossom on his face as he remembered the exaltation before a day of exploration.

*

Jaskier, surprisingly, was up at dawn and didn’t complain about the morning cold. He was petting Roach, scratching her ear, but not whispering in it like he used to do. Geralt hated those secret confidences, despite the absurdity of the whole thing – he was not being jealous of his horse, just of the affection she showed the annoying poet, and for no good reason.

The air was crisp and the sun was just rising. The woods were quiet, and Jaskier looked sleepy as hell – he had never really liked early departures. His attire was overly bright, outside in the light of day – a deep red that brought back painful memories of anger and words he wished he hadn’t uttered – but the bard had sturdy leather shoes and a light bag flung over his shoulder. 

“No need to go back for your lute?” Geralt asked, and Jaskier let out a wordless sigh, his eyes downcast. Touchy subject, understood.

Geralt supposed he should have been happy for the lack of musical accompaniment on the road – it made it easier to focus on nearby noises and to stay alert. But it was also boring and not at all how he remembered traveling with the loud-mouthed bard. 

They stopped for lunch in a clearing in the middle of nowhere, more for Jaskier’s sake than anything else, despite the utter lack of complaining. Jaskier surprised the witcher by actually having food in his bag, dried meat and some biscuits that looked of elven origin. It told a story that Geralt couldn’t really figure out, so he finally broke the silence to ask, “Are you alright?” 

But Jaskier just shrugged. He certainly didn’t look good, sad eyes and clamped mouth. That whole silent charade was starting to get on Geralt’s nerves, but he kept pushing and getting no answer.

“You didn’t have to follow me if you’re still mad…” he trailed, because Jaskier shook his head and opened his mouth as if he was finally going to launch into a well-deserved tirade – that Geralt would have welcomed at this point. And then he clamped it shut again and looked away instead, arms crossed like a pouting child.

“Fine,” Geralt said, standing up and turning to Roach. “Have it your way, you…”

The insult died on his lips because Jaskier brushed his arm, his fingers only dancing on his skin. But the bard winced and withdrew his hand, as if he had been burned, physically recoiling from Geralt. That was new, he thought, vexed and annoyed.

*

Trying to touch anyone hurt as bad as trying to speak, and there was no way he could explain that to Geralt right now. So it was easier to pretend to be still mad, Jaskier thought, trailing behind the witcher on the path. At least that way, he wasn’t tempted to ask for help. Geralt wouldn’t care anyway, he would probably mock and tease, say that he deserved it. Maybe not in so many words, but he had his way to be mean. At least he couldn’t send him away for being too noisy this time.

Jaskier had hoped that maybe, the witcher would have sensed that something of magical nature was at work, and that he would have offered to help. Jaskier would have begrudgingly accepted it, if it meant that he could finally speak and yell and sing again. Touching people too, he certainly missed that, but strangely not as much as the ability to communicate. That crazy witch certainly knew what she was doing when she stole his voice and cursed him.

Geralt was mad at him, or at himself, Jaskier wasn’t sure. He still didn’t know where they were going exactly, because the witcher hadn’t said, and he was now fuming and stomping ahead, leading Roach along. He must have really been pissed because he didn’t hear the splash of water on their left, didn’t see the slimy, blueish flash of skin and the deadly pikes on the back of the creature which emerged from the swamp.

Damn witcher, and damn witch, Jaskier thought in a fleeting moment of panic. He grabbed a rock and lobbed it at the witcher’s back, hitting him in the back of the head instead.

Geralt turned to yell at him, that much was evident on his constipated face, but his expression shifted when he saw the monster staggering to meet them.

“Drowner,” he said to no one in particular. “Nasty.” 

Jaskier didn’t care about the name of that one because there were others coming in its wake, looking like bloated corpses and smelling even worse.

“Shit,” Geralt said when he saw them.

If Jaskier had had a voice, he would have replied something sarcastic yet panicky, but all he could do was watch silently as Geralt unsheathed his silver sword.

*

Rotfiends, so many of them, Geralt thought, swiftly hacking through the lone drowner and turning to face the other creatures. He wasn’t getting paid enough for this job after all.

Damn bard who couldn’t even raise the alarm properly and who had annoyed him so much he missed them all and didn’t realize they had them surrounded. All that mess because he was holding a grudge like a brat. 

Some part of him suggested that he was also to blame, but he silenced it with action and gory bits of monster flying everywhere.

“If one of them explodes…” he breathed, not finishing his thought. Toxic slime from erupting rotfiends’ heads was a terrible way to go, and he wasn’t angry enough to wish that for the bard. 

But he got sloppy, and an injured rotfiend started staggering towards them, his head rapidly swelling like a bloated corpse, ready to burst. All he could do was grab Jaskier’s arm and fling him away from the path, hopefully far enough from the blast radius. Jaskier hit a tree, landed in a heap and stayed down as the first monster exploded. He didn’t yelp or protest, didn’t whine or scream. The silence was frightening, Geralt thought, wondering if he had accidentally killed the bard.

He approached him warily once the last rotfiend stopped moving. But Jaskier was alright, just stubbornly silent. He sat up with a frown, somewhat unsteadily. He blinked and raised a hand to his head, not looking at Geralt. 

“Dammit, Jaskier,” Geralt snapped, irrationally angry now that his worry appeared unwarranted.

He crouched next to the bard, making a fist to stop himself from reaching his face.

“That is going to bruise,” he said a bit more softly, as he studied Jaskier’s head.

The left side of his hair was caked with blood and mud. The bard did his best to glare, mouth closed in silent complaining.

“Say something already,” Geralt huffed; he was the silent brooding one, dammit, not the other way around. 

Jaskier bared his teeth and tried to slap him. He only succeeded because he took Geralt by surprise, with a glancing blow that lacked force and precision, and couldn’t do any real damage. And yet Jaskier winced and put his hand under his armpit as if he hurt himself badly.

“What the…”

The bard was no wimp. Sure he loved to complain, about everything and anything, but Geralt had seen him hurt way worse, and he still had managed to crack some lewd jokes. 

“Fuck, did I break your arm…”

Geralt tried to check the limb, but Jaskier nearly wrenched himself out of his grasp, panting and wincing. Not broken, he decided, with the way he was moving it around. He looked into Jaskier’s eyes, searching for an explanation, and only reading concussed confusion and pain. Geralt realized that he wasn’t merely angry at him and playing with his head. Something was deeply wrong.

“A curse?” he asked, thinking out loud. Jaskier gave no indication that he was right, but something tiny shifted on his face and his shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. 

“You can’t speak,” Geralt started, staring at Jaskier’s face, trying to read his expression. “No, more than that,” he continued, thinking out loud. “You can’t communicate.” 

Jaskier didn’t nod, which made sense if the reward was pain. He just kept rubbing the injured side of his head. 

*

Getting the whole story out of a mute and uncooperative Jaskier turned out to be slow and frustrating for the both of them. But Geralt was confident enough in his deduction skills, and he had had to work with less clues more than once in the past. 

He just couldn’t wrap his head around why the bard hadn’t tried to find him, hadn’t tried to look for help. It was making him less and less patient, while Jaskier looked content despite his predicament. 

Talking was out of the question; gestures could only be small and restrained. Even giving him the finger seemed to hurt – and yet Jaskier did it several times. 

He surprised Jaskier by fishing out an old notebook of his from Roach’s saddlebags, and it seemed to mollify him somehow. When Geralt tried to get him to write, he learned that it was impossible. But Jaskier still grabbed the ink pot and quill the witcher gave him, and started drawing tiny stick figures in the margins of the pages, sticking his tongue out in concentration. 

“You’re not just trying to insult me by pretending I can’t read, right?” Geralt asked, as he took the notebook from him. Jaskier threw him a mean look. 

It was a story about love and revenge, as was to be expected with Jaskier. A witch. A curse. A bottle of some kind, that she apparently snatched away. 

“You didn’t have to sell your lute, did you?” Geralt asked suddenly, looking up from the doodles. 

Caring for the instrument was the closest to a show of good faith Geralt could offer the bard right now. And for a brief moment, he wondered if that earlier stunt hadn’t scrambled Jaskier’s brains, because he started shaking, a whole body shudder that looked freakishly scary. Until he realized that the poet was merely laughing, silent jerks of spasming muscles. 

“Not sold then,” Geralt said softly, when Jaskier calmed down, wiping a tear from the corner of his unbruised eye. The other was already starting to swell.

“Stolen?” he tried instead, and the forlorn look he got told him all he needed to know.

“Let me help?”

Silence answered him, of course. But then the scratching of the pen on paper, and soon he was presented with a tiny figure that waved in the direction of… the east, maybe? A copse of trees, a house on chicken legs. Jaskier was a better poet than he was an artist, but he seemed to know where the witch lived.

A clue, that was good – it meant something to do, instead of rehashing the past and wondering how late was too late for apologies. It was a plan then, roam east until they found Jaskier’s voice back. It sounded like the opposite of what he should want, and yet… 

*

It was weird to see Geralt be the one initiating conversation and trying to actually communicate. Jaskier wasn’t sure what changed – probably the rotfiends attack, although he only had disjointed memories of the whole thing. Maybe hurting him and getting no heat for it shocked the witcher. Maybe he got used to Jaskier holding his ground, and the lack of bite displeased him. 

It shouldn’t have been that easy to start following that idiot witcher once more. Not after his harsh but heartfelt words, even if it felt like forever ago now. And yet Jaskier was even allowing himself to be a little hopeful, as they walked in the direction of the east, where the witch lived. 

It was a stupid story, really, one that he wouldn’t even want to turn into song, should he get his voice back in the end. She seemed pretty and sweet, and then it turned out she wasn’t – an old woman who disguised her true figure, tricking young people into courting her. Of course she got angry, when he laughed in her face, and she made sure he would never be heard again or loved again.

He liked it better when he was still pretending to be silent on purpose. Now he got to think about his curse, and he was starting to worry that Geralt wouldn’t succeed. What if the witch was too strong and cunning even for the mighty white wolf? What if his voice had withered away, locked where it was? What if she hid it, and they never found it back? That was a horrifying thought, even worse than knowing it was trapped somewhere, merely out of reach.

Of all things, music was what Jaskier missed the most. Of course, intimacy and the ability to sputter insults whenever he wanted were hard to lose, but music had been everything to him before. A tool, a way to earn coin and charm people – a love language sometimes – an escape from the bleak reality of a world where rotting corpses could explode on you, so that your friend had to throw you headfirst into a tree to save you.

As anxiety and fleeting thoughts of panic and disaster built up inside with no way out, he began tapping his fingers against his thigh as they walked, working a rhythm to a melody only he could hear. It hurt, distantly, his fingertips felt raw and hot, as if that mere gesture was a means of communication, and the curse was punishing him for it. 

If Geralt heard his nervous habit, he didn’t say anything, as they hiked through the grove on a narrow path. 

*

East wasn’t the way Geralt was planning to go; he had a reward to collect, and people to meet further south. That detour was a mistake, some cruel part of him grumbled, and witchers shouldn’t get involved in human matters. He tried to silence the little voice, but it was hard to shake old habits. Jaskier meant trouble – chaos and disaster followed him, whether he wanted it or not.

And the worst thing is that he knew the fool had probably enjoyed the whole thing at first, thought of it as an adventure, something he could turn into an epic ballad, in which he would battle the witch and win his voice back to tell the tale. He probably looked for help, maybe tried a local herbalist, before turning to an Elven camp when the first couldn’t do anything for him. But of course he didn’t get a happy end. 

Geralt tried to fill the silence with words, but he wasn’t good with those. No, that wasn’t true. He could adequately hold a conversation, and talk to his horse for days on end, but this wasn’t the same. Jaskier wasn’t only silent, he was unresponsive; tiny, wincing smiles and some restrained hand gestures were the best he could get from the bard. It wasn’t fair.

“… and that’s why Ciri is with Yennefer right now, and why I’m not with them.” 

“I missed you, you know.” 

“Rotfiends used to be quite rare, can you believe that? But now they plague the land…”

“… and so Lambert asked why I always named my horses Roach, and I told him that wasn’t his damn business…”

The woods got thicker, the path narrower, and the atmosphere heavier. Geralt couldn’t sense any monsters nearby, but he also couldn’t sense the powerful witch Jaskier thought lived around these parts. She must have shielded the house somehow, preventing people from stumbling upon it.

Jaskier had a wild look in his eye, and his damp hair clang to his brow, making him appear pale and feverish in the dim light. They gave up trying to communicate with the notebook – it was way too slow and frustrating for the both of them. But if his agitation was anything to go by, then they were on the right track.

Wind started howling through the branches, and an unnatural cold suddenly made them shiver and exhale puffs of white smoke.

“This must be the spot,” Geralt said, patting Roach on the flank. The horse looked skittish, but the witcher knew she wouldn’t bolt. Not yet. She had witnessed way scarier things after all.

*

Jaskier only vaguely remembered the place. It was mostly bits and pieces, a feeling of dread, being mad and unable to express it. Screaming silently and writhing on the forest floor in agony because that was forbidden by the curse.

He clenched his fists and tried to relax his shoulders. Geralt was talking to himself, or to Roach, something about a hag, an illusion and some oil he had to apply to his sword. In any other circumstances, the poet would have been all over him, pestering him with questions and remarks, trying to smell, to see, to touch. But not this time, not when he was so close he could feel it. 

Mist parted and the house appeared, as silly-looking as he remembered. It looked straight out of a children book, a shack made of planks, perched on top of two sinewy trees that could indeed be mistaken for chicken legs. 

He lost track for a moment, either the concussion or a spell was at work, because next thing he knew, he was climbing, actually climbing the damn tree with his bare hands and slippery shoes. He looked at Geralt’s shapely ass above his head, and gripped the next branch tighter – a powerful spell indeed, if he was only noticing it now.

*

Jaskier looked bad; like a puppet with cut strings. He followed him wordlessly, eyes vacant and not tracking properly. Whatever that frigging hag did to him, she was going to regret it, he thought, as he reached the creaking planks in front of the house. He didn’t help the bard because touching him would be painful, but he made sure he was still with him. He had some color back on his cheeks, chin held high like he knew what murderous thoughts Geralt was rummaging right now.

The door clanked open, and the witch stepped out of her house. Geralt blinked and reached his silver sword, not yet drawing it. She looked beautiful and ugly at the same time: it wasn’t the same deception as mages, who underwent an irreversible procedure to hide any imperfections. Her ugliness was still there, on the edge of his vision, merely hidden.

“Well, this is unexpected,” the witch said, eyeing the witcher from head to toe.

Jaskier made a throaty sound, probably the most Geralt heard from him lately, and glared at the shiny pendant around her neck. She clasped her small, soft hand around it – Geralt could make out crooked fingers and deformed nails, if he squinted enough – and when she took off the cap, the bard fell to his knees, suddenly hacking up like a cat choking on a fur ball. 

The witch snatched his chin and forced him to look up. Jaskier wailed, squirming and trying to escape. Geralt took his sword out but found that he was rooted in place, unable to take another step forward. He grit his teeth, fingers twitching on the hilt. He hated her smile and the sound of Jaskier’s pants of pain. 

“His squeals are as delightful as I remembered,” she crooned. 

“The curse,” Geralt growled. “Lift it off.” He flexed his fingers to get a good grip on his sword, tip angled downward, but ready to strike if she made another move.

“Well, a witcher like yourself, I would have thought you’d be well versed in those matters.” There was evil in her unnaturally brown eyes, something so dark no magic could ever hide. 

“Speak,” he threatened, raising his sword despite the magic holding him at bay.

“Ah, I see. He likes them dumb,” she muttered with a faint smile, while Jaskier panted through the pain. “Well, the cheating whore will be free when he gets the one thing he can never have, given his wicked ways.”

“Give me back my lute, you ugly witch,” Jaskier spat in between two gasps, in a voice so strained it didn’t sound like his own.

Oh, so she also had the lute hostage, Geralt thought. He really must have pissed her off, whatever he did.

The beautiful elven instrument materialized out of thin air in the witch’s paws, and Jaskier, who was struggling to his feet, seemed to lose his mind. There was no other explanation, the witcher thought, as the bard jumped on her to try and grab the lute.

She threw the instrument over the edge and backhanded him with a strength at odds with her diminutive frame – all a lie, an illusion. She sent him flying right off the edge of the platform.

“Bollocks,” Jaskier exclaimed, airborne for a brief instant. 

Geralt stopped thinking as well and ran his sword through her, right in the upper abdomen. She looked at him with something akin to amusement on her face, before snapping her fingers again and vanishing in a puff of smoke. The house disappeared as well, and Geralt had to jump and grab a branch not to plummet like Jaskier. 

Jaskier who still hadn’t moved. But he was alive, Geralt thought, he had to be – the idiot was too resilient to die that stupidly. If asked, he would have denied he was worried. Worrying about others, having friends, caring about people – it created so many liabilities, and a witcher couldn’t have those on the path.

And yet, he got down as fast as he could, and knelt in the wet grass next to the bard. He could see his chest rise – merely unconscious then – and Geralt let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Why did he care anyway, it wasn’t like any of this was his fault, nobody forced the bard to jump on a witch to retrieve his silly instrument. 

He wanted to check his eyes, make sure he didn’t scramble his brains worse than last time. He wanted to run a hand through his damp hair, smooth the unruly locks. He didn’t though, but merely because he was afraid of hurting him even more. 

Jaskier opened his eyes and winced, then gasped, then winced some more. Brains only moderately scrambled then. 

*

“We need to stop meeting like that,” Jaskier groaned, looking blearily at a very fuzzy Geralt kneeling next to him.

The grass was wet against his back, and he felt cold and achy. The trees above were bare now, so the witch was probably gone. Or dead. Oh he hoped Geralt had killed her.

He tried to sit up, blindly reaching for the witcher’s arm. His whole hand felt ablaze as soon as his fingers brushed the bare skin and they both swore loudly. 

“Fuck, she didn’t lift the curse?” Jaskier whined indignantly. His voice croaked, rusty with disuse. 

“Hmm…” 

“Always so helpful,” Jaskier mocked. He managed to sit up on his own and ran a hand through his hair. His fingers came back clean of any blood, but everything was still badly throbbing.

“At least you have your voice back,” Geralt remarked. 

“But I still can’t touch anyone!” Jaskier exclaimed, his voice laced with contained anger and pain. 

“Ungrateful,” the witcher muttered.

There was irony in that curse, and it wasn’t lost on him. Jaskier started rambling out loud, trying to make sense of the whole thing. 

“I can’t stay like that!” he whined. “We have to break it. What did the witch say? ‘The one thing I can never have’? She probably meant my true love’s kiss, or something terribly sappy like that. But I love anyone and everyone! I even try to seduce dryads and bruxae!” He let out a shaky breath, because those were wild memories, and he didn’t regret any of those adventures. “I mean,” he continued, getting more and more frantic, “it could be anyone, even Priscilla, but no, we’re only friends and…”

Jaskier lost track of things for a second – he was concussed and panicking about a stupidly unbreakable curse – and Geralt startled him when got into his face, very close all of a sudden.

And then the witcher just kissed him right there on the mouth, effectively shutting him up. Jaskier should have leaned forward, embraced it for all the times he had dreamed about it. Instead he recoiled, fearing the pain that would soon follow.

Except… it didn’t? Geralt didn’t stop kissing him, his lips surprisingly warm. He laced his fingers through his matted hair and brushed the knot on the back of his head – and yeah, that hurt, but nothing else did, not like before. And when their lips parted and he remembered how to breathe, he let his head fall back, staring at Geralt like he had been replaced by a doppler or something.

“Fuck. What?” Jaskier mumbled. 

Geralt just chuckled and stood up as if it was nothing. Was he dead? Was it all a cruel trick created by the witch? Geralt didn’t laugh, ever. Jaskier patted himself down, trying to gauge if he was in one piece. Apart from his throbbing head and the very vivid hallucinations, he was mostly fine.

“Hold on!” Jaskier exclaimed. “What just happened?”

“The hag called me dumb, but you’re not that bright yourself,” Geralt said in a low voice, as if he was talking to himself. 

Jaskier got to his feet and wobbled for an instant, before Geralt reached back and straightened him up with a grip on the collar of his ruined doublet. His fingers brushed his nape but there was no spark of pain, nothing, just a familiar warmth he hadn’t felt in forever. He made a noise, something between a gasp and a mewl, because damn he had missed touch, and Geralt misinterpreted and quickly released him. 

Jaskier snatched his hand back and held on tight, thanking him without words. Geralt stared at him with that bored expression he always wore, but the poet could see tiny hints of a smile, in the soft curve of his mouth, at the corner of his eyes. It had to mean something, even if there was no way to tell what the witcher was thinking right now.

*

To be perfectly honest, Geralt only kissed him because he didn’t know what else to do when Jaskier started hyperventilating and talking very fast. He was on the verge of panicking, maybe even crying – something equally annoying and scary that Geralt didn’t want to witness or have to manage. He just wasn’t good with emotions.

“How did you know it would work?” Jaskier finally asked in a tiny voice, and Geralt turned his head away, pretending he wasn’t looking at his face, all scrunched up in pain and worry. 

“I didn’t,” Geralt said. “But spells usually have silly fail-safes. It was worth a shot.”

“Oh no,” Jaskier exclaimed, outraged, “you don’t get to pretend it’s not a big deal. I thought Yennefer was your soulmate,” he added with a snarl, as if the name left a bad taste in his mouth. “I thought you hated me and couldn’t stand to hear my voice anymore.” 

“And yet you followed me throughout the Continent for decades,” Geralt said. “You followed me mute and cursed, without even asking for help. Which was damn stupid by the way.”

“I thought you were still mad.”

“So did I,” Geralt sighed. 

They were both equally stupid, and Jaskier started laughing at the thought. It was sparkling and joyful, even if his voice was still raw. It sounded good, like when you find something you didn’t even know you had lost.

“I am, by the way,” Jaskier said with one hand on his hip.

“What?” 

“Still mad.” 

And he had every right to be, Geralt thought. 

“Stop thinking so loudly and help me look for my lute,” Jaskier said, interrupting his brooding with noise and agitation.

The lute, right, it probably had shattered on impact, but if anything, it deserved a proper send off, or whatever bards did with their broken lutes. Jaskier wasn’t letting it go, so he decided to help. There was a metaphor in there, Geralt thought, as he scanned the area, the tall grass and the muddy patches, looking for anything wooden and broken. 

*

“Where is it?” Jaskier groaned. Pacing with his head down was the worst, and his headache was getting worse with every step. Damn thing couldn’t have vanished into thin air, it must have come down somewhere. Even if there was no way to salvage it, it didn’t seem fair to abandon it and let it rot here of all places.

Geralt was helping, but he kept throwing him side glances from time to time.

“What?” Jaskier finally barked. He sat down against a large tree, sighing loudly.

“Nothing,” Geralt said, expressionless as ever.

“Am I getting on your nerves already?” he asked. He knew he was loud, always had been, couldn’t help it. 

“Hmm.” 

“You probably liked it better when the witch had my voice in a bottle.”

Jaskier pressed his head against his knees and let his shoulders sag. He knew that wasn’t true – Geralt had been frustrated all the way, trying to talk and getting no answer. There was just no pleasing the man, he thought grimly. 

“I’ll get out of your hair and…” 

Jaskier never finished his sentence, because suddenly Geralt was… hugging him? Or at least patting his back awkwardly, like he forgot how it worked. Jaskier nudged closer, closing his eyes because everything hurt.

“You’re an ass, but I like you,” Geralt said in a gravelly voice that rumbled through his chest. Jaskier nodded wordlessly; it sounded about right. “And it seems the gods like you too. Look up.”

Jaskier reluctantly opened an eye and looked. This lute was above them in the tree. The strap had caught on a branch and it was just dangling there, miraculously intact.

“Yes, Jaskier, I’ll get it back for you,” Geralt said with another pat, and Jaskier smiled.

“So, soulmates?” Jaskier’s tone was playful, but it sounded like a true question. 

“Call me your muse if that makes you feel better,” Geralt said, and he started climbing.

*

“Bruxae, plural?” Geralt asked some time later. He knew about Jaskier’s sad attempts to seduce dryads, but the vampires were a surprise. Well, not a real surprise, but it was still puzzling.

They were slowly making their way through the woods and back to the road leading south. Jaskier was dozing on Roach’s saddle. He had been reluctant to accept the offer at first, but he was clearly the worse for wear after his fall. 

“Huh,” Jaskier jerked upright. “Bruxae are feisty,” he defended himself.

“And yet you didn’t sleep with the pretty witch?”

“Witches are scary,” Jaskier said with a shudder. “She was a monster.” 

“I’m a monster too,” Geralt remarked somberly. 

“Are you asking if I would sleep with you?” 

“Could be,” the witcher mumbled; the conversation had derailed faster than he had intended. 

“You hate me,” Jaskier said – and before Geralt could find anything to retort, he continued, “But you never tried to claw my face off. You never cursed me before stealing my voice and my lute.” 

He did try to silence him with a magical wish, but Jaskier didn’t mention it. The poet was cradling the instrument, strap secured over his shoulder. He hadn’t played yet, as if he was afraid of disturbing the quiet and angering the witch – or the witcher – once again. Geralt would have welcomed the noise; the silence was a greater reminder of how wrong and annoying a silent Jaskier had been.

“Will you write a song about it?” Geralt tried.

He was actually curious if any of it could be spun into a ballad. Come to think of it, he hadn’t heard a song by Jaskier in a while – not since that sad song about Yennefer. He certainly hoped the bard hadn’t been cursed that long.

“A fair prince, reduced to silence by a jealous witch because he was too smart and pretty, only to be rescued by a daring maiden and her soft lips,” Jaskier mused aloud.

“Not very truthful,” Geralt commented. He didn’t know what he preferred, to feature in a sappy love song or to be transformed into a daring maiden.

“Your lips _were_ soft,” Jaskier protested, with a dramatic strum on the lute, and Geralt couldn’t help but grin.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know about this one. I was playing the game and helping Johnny get his voice back from the harpies, and suddenly I wanted to write a post-mountain fic where Jaskier was the one missing his voice, and Geralt was taking everything personnally and being a stubborn moron.


End file.
